There was only a slight pain throughout his body, and some sweat appeared on his forehead, but nothing else happened.
10 minutes passed.
The Shadow Talent was successfully fused.
At this time, Ryan's talents had changed again.
Human: Ryan Ashford
Cultivation Talent: Advanced + Medium + Weak
Martial Arts Talent: Advanced
Reflex Talent: Medium
Shadow Talent: Primary
Ryan was very satisfied with his current talents.
He didn't know how many talents the geniuses of larger survival cities possessed, but within Greyhaven, having this combination of talents was already extremely rare.
"There should be something good on Silas, right?"
Ryan carefully examined Silas's belongings.
Silas's knife was quite good.
It was a black knife with a narrow groove running along the blade. Even after the battle, there wasn't a visible gap on its edge.
Ryan had no intention of replacing his saber with it, but a weapon of this quality was clearly valuable.
"It should be a very good weapon. I can keep it for now."
Ryan put away the black knife and continued searching through Silas's belongings.
Soon, everything Silas carried had been collected.
A technique manual, 3 gold cards, 5 white cards, and some loose banknotes.
Seeing these gains, Ryan's eyes lit up.
A single gold card represented 1,700,000 denari, while each white card represented 17,000 denari.
Together, the cards alone contained 5,185,000 denari.
There was also the loose money Silas had been carrying.
The gold cards were similar to bank cards from Ryan's previous life.
Greyhaven itself did not possess the technology required to manufacture such high-value financial cards. They originated from larger survival cities, whose financial institutions also operated branches in Greyhaven.
Even if Ryan eventually went to a larger city, the funds stored on them could still be withdrawn.
With more than 5 million denari suddenly falling into his hands, Ryan's wealth had increased enormously.
Coupled with the newly acquired Shadow Talent, he felt that his growth could accelerate considerably.
"There's still a problem to solve right now—Connor Blake!"
A trace of killing intent flashed through Ryan's eyes.
At this point, there were 2 people Ryan suspected most.
Connor Blake.
Victor Langford.
Both were from prominent Blood Warrior families, and both had enough money and connections to hire an assassin like Silas.
However, Ryan suspected Connor far more.
Victor had already left Aegis Martial Academy and seemed to be occupied with matters involving his family's inheritance.
Although it was still possible that Victor had arranged the assassination, Ryan felt that he probably had little time to concern himself with Ryan at the moment.
Connor was different.
There was already a direct grudge between the 2 of them.
Moreover, Connor had only recently returned from seclusion after attempting to break through to Rank 1.
The timing was simply too suspicious.
"Connor Blake..."
Murderous intent flashed through Ryan's eyes.
Whether Connor had hired Silas or not, Ryan had already made his decision.
Connor was his enemy.
Even if this assassination had nothing to do with him, Connor would eventually make another move against Ryan sooner or later.
And Ryan highly suspected that this assassination had been orchestrated by Connor in the first place.
Rather than continue waiting for Connor to attack him, it would be better to make the first move.
"If it was you, then this is simply repayment."
Ryan's eyes turned cold.
"And even if it wasn't, you were going to come after me sooner or later anyway."
There was no longer any room for reconciliation between him and Connor.
Ryan had no intention of waiting until another assassin appeared before dealing with the problem.
Of course, he couldn't simply kill Connor openly using his own identity.
If he did that, the Blake family would certainly retaliate.
"I thought of it!"
Ryan looked toward Silas's body, and a slight smile appeared on his face.
Now he possessed Shadow Talent.
He also had Silas's black knife and some of his belongings.
Perhaps he could pretend to be Silas.
If Connor really was the person who hired Silas, using Silas's identity would make dealing with him even easier.
And even if Connor wasn't the one who hired Silas, Ryan had already decided to make his move against him.
Ryan dealt with Silas's body before leaving the grove.
By the time he returned home, night had already fallen.
Ryan did not immediately rest.
Instead, he began familiarizing himself with Shadow Talent.
After testing it for some time, he quickly discovered that Shadow Talent was not as unreasonable as it initially appeared.
He couldn't remain in the shadow state indefinitely.
Maintaining the ability consumed energy, and there also had to be actual shadows around him.
If sufficiently strong light directly illuminated the area, his body would be exposed.
Secondly, he couldn't attack while remaining concealed.
The moment he launched an attack, the shadow state would disappear.
Likewise, if an opponent managed to strike him while he was hidden, the shadow state would also be broken.
Shadow Talent was therefore most suitable for hiding, infiltration, assassination, and avoiding enemies at critical moments.
It wasn't particularly suited to straightforward frontal combat.
"And there's still this technique manual!"
Ryan took out the manual he had obtained from Silas and began reading it carefully.
The more he read, the more interested he became.
It was a knife technique called—
Shadow Claw.
Shadow Claw contained only 1 move.
Shadow Kill.
It was an extremely fast attack that focused everything into a sudden strike.
But what truly interested Ryan wasn't the technique itself.
Instead, it was the information recorded inside about weapon mastery.
Although Ryan had Advanced Martial Arts Talent, there were still many things about the broader path of weapon techniques that he didn't understand.
According to the manual, weapon mastery could broadly be divided into 3 stages:
Form.
Force.
Intent.
Ordinary people could learn the form of a weapon technique through repeated practice.
But reaching the level of Force required genuine Martial Arts Talent.
Intent was an even higher realm.
The manual also recorded the commonly used grades for combat techniques.
Low.
Medium.
High.
Advanced.
Shadow Claw was a Medium-level technique.